I have a line of Oxford cross Pheonix that have shown a mutant/resessive gene for rounded ends on saddle feathers with a spot of darker or black pigment in the rounded end. My guess is the long feather is interacting with other genes to slow feather growth on the shaft and increase growth on webbing with darker pigments produced at this stage also, as feather developes further normal growth returns and pigment production stops. Has anyone ever come across this feathering before in any breed. Thanks Mr Phox

I know that this is a very old thread, but I could have written it myself. Same story - a line of Standard Araucanas which had been closed for many years (although from originally from a variety of sources). Always some rough feather issues with the Lavs, then suddenly Silky feathers - in the lav males only. I blamed the introduction of a new (lav) roo (possibly carrying the silky gene) I no longer have him (got rid of him as soon as the 'feathers' appeared) After about 5 gens, the silky feathers are still appearing in the lav males only. No other Silky features ever appear - no feathered legs, extra toes, black skin, mulberry combs, blue lobes etc. Unfortunately I haven't kept any records, done any test crosses or out crossed.Now I'm thinking to put the next one back to a Silky to see what happens.

I haven't re read and absorbed all of this thread yet but I'm having the same Silky feathered Lavender Araucana experience as Kyles was having. Silky feathers (males only) but for the first time this season a dull black male (could he be very dark Lav?)None of these Araucanas have any other Silkie specific features.I will be putting one of the males over Black Silkies (Lav. Silkies)

The question is - the best otherwise 'normal feathered' Araucana male has some soft downy type feathers on his crest, muff and beard.

Can Silky feathering be partially expressed?

Should I not use him in my Araucana pen?I don't really want to do test mating. He is otherwise by far the best male and I'm running out of the resources to keep too many backups, and Silky feathered Araucanas are not particularly desirable.

I put fester (Kyles lav silkie feathered araucana ckl) over a black pure silkie as part of making lavender silkies. So I hatched about 15 chics... all silkie feathered. I cannot tell any difference in them to normal silkie feathering it looks and feels the same. They look like normal silkies just bit different in shape and size.

From this we know that this lavender silkie-feathered Araucana rooster (with no crest - a fault in Araucana) IS carry the same recessive autosomal gene (hookless -silkiness) as found in the Silkie breed (or one other possibility - another mutation allele of the same locus).

Note, from DNA sequencing research & test breeding we know that the silkie hookless gene is on Chromosome 3, found on the PDSS2 gene (Feng et al. 2014). From other research we know that the lavender gene is on Chromosome 7, found on the MLPH gene (Vaez et al., 2008). Because they are on different chromosomes we know that silkie hookless & lavender genes segregate independently (no close linkage), and there is no sex-linkage involved (not on Z sex chromosome).

Thanks for that kazjaps. I have only had an occasional one (fairly small sample size) so it would seem that the males only have been co incidence.The cockerel I am planning to use has a crest and quite a compact body.Do you know the subsequent history of Festers family?

Can the hookless gene be partially expressed? Is that why some Silkies have some 'hard feathers'?

To give some history of Australian crossbreeding in the development of various new breed varieties.

There were at least two different lines of Bearded Silkies developed in Australia, one from Gerry Coady using Faverolles. Another unrelated line (different breeder) was developed from Araucanas (in the 1970's/1980's).

The following segregate is descended from the Araucana X Silkie line (circa late 1970's to early 1980's):

Also, Gerry Coady developed lavender Araucana bantams by crossing Araucana to lavender Belgian d'Anvers.There have been Belgian de Watermael lines developed from crossing d'Anvers to Polish, & I can imagine some using Araucana crosses too (de Watermael are crested, bearded). I know of one lavender d'Anver line that some hens were laying blue eggs, highlighting their Araucana ancestry. There would have been some silkie lines laying blue eggs too. Ruff developed her own lines of lavender Pekins, & lavender silkies, & other breeders were using lavender Pekins to develop lavender Silkies, so don't be surprised if silkie-feathered Pekins segregate too. Note, there was also another line of Lavender Silkies in Victoria -don't know their history of development (whether they used lavender Araucanas).

All the breeds today with the lavender gene (in Australia) are probably descendants of lavender Belgians. Whether a lavender variety breeder started with lavender Araucanas, Pekins, Coronation Sussex, etc - they probably all trace back to lavender Belgians anyway.

Note too - the Fm dark skin/flesh mutation was intentionally introduced through crossing Silkies to OEG & Modern Game Birchen /Brown Red exhibition varieties, for gypsy-face colouring. And I think someone else introduced Fm into Australian Sebrights (don't know if from OEG /MG with Fm or directly from Silkies).

In summary, to be perfectly honest, to treat a silkie-feathered Araucana segregate as "shock-horror a sign of impure breeding" is about as logical as treating a Lavender Araucana segregate as "shock-horror a sign of impure breeding" . If an Australian Araucana is lavender, it is a descendant of crossbreeding.

Thanks for that kazjaps. I have only had an occasional one (fairly small sample size) so it would seem that the males only have been co incidence.The cockerel I am planning to use has a crest and quite a compact body.Do you know the subsequent history of Festers family?

Can the hookless gene be partially expressed? Is that why some Silkies have some 'hard feathers'?

Sue55, I haven't heard anymore about Fester's family. Would be good to hear an update from Chookster, & to see photos of the F1 Fester X Black Silkie offspring (which I imagine were black silkie-feathered), & whether subsequent lavender silkies were developed.

Note too in the other linked thread on Fester that another Araucana breeder (Huney007) had silkie-feathered lavender Araucanas segregating too. Probably just a coincidence, but this line was segregating non-crested Araucanas too.------------------------------------------------------

Sue55, if you don't want any silkie-feathered segregating in the future, it would mean culling out from the breeding pens all normal-feathered birds that you know have produced silkie-feathering offspring (ie proven carriers of silkiness- hookless), plus test breeding all the rest of normal feathered Araucanas before using in Araucana breeding pens (can use a silkie-feathered Araucana instead of a Silkie "breed" for test breeding). As hookless is an autosomal recessive gene, it means that both males and females can be carriers. So if you want to eradicate the hookless gene for good from your Araucanas, both parents need to be test bred first to determine neither parent is a carrier (ie, need to test breed your hens too, not just the roosters).

I haven't heard of any physical traits to determine carriers of the hookless gene (ie in normal-feathered birds, carrying hookless). I think it is probably completely recessive.

Thanks for that Kazjaps. I know which rooster is responsible so he is to go. The logistics of single mating are not practical but I had been planning to start by separating the Ara. hens into 2 smaller groups with the Lavs together so I can put them back to the Silky Ara male. Unfortunately his father is the father of most of last years hatch. I will have to start keeping better records (on 1 piece of paper).I had a look at Chooksters website. It doesn't appear to have been updated since 2010 with only a passing ref to Lav Silkies.

Last edited by sue55 on Tue Sep 06, 2016 11:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I can't help with the genetics side of it but once you mentioned araucana. I bought a pullet for a lavender silkie project, she is a lavender bantam ara with silkie feathering. She is from a breeder who has had the line going for 8 generations & this 1 was the only 1 that has been hatched

Thanks demoniaque, that's the same background story that every one else seems to have. Did you manage to produce lavender Silkies? I will be using my standard Lav. Silky feathered Ara boy - also hoping to get some more size into the Silkies.

Not yet, she's moulting now. I accidently hatched an egg from my lge lavender Orp hen & the black silkie roo last season. Unfortunetly he is small, black with a solid silver neck hackle, 5 toe & straight comb, he has a mulberry comb & face. I'm just not sure what to do, scrap the idea, put the ara girl & him together or put each of them back to purebred blacks & then mate the progeny of those mattings. Blue eggs could make it interesting

Well I put my Silky feathered Aracauna male to 3 black Silkies (now to see if he is Blue or Lav) - one hen good type but a spriggy comb (hopefully the pea comb will help with that). The other 2 are smaller than I would like but are still young.One of the black Silkie females has some silver in her hackle. What will that do with blue or lav. Eggs due to hatch over the weekend.

I'd missed this thread til now. One of my lavender Araucana hens I think has become Silkie-feathered. She is around 4 years old, and I hadn't paid much attention following the last moult - just thought she was showing maybe some Frizzle in her ancestry, and had taken a year or three to show up.

But looking at her after reading this, no it is more like Silkie. She is medium-small, almost bantam like so many Aras, and I wasn't going to incubate her very blue eggs. So do I leave her with a white Ara rooster and see what happens with her offspring. Or should I put her with the light blue splash Silkie rooster to get some blue-egg-laying Silkie types going? (Just when I said I was over cross-breeding for good).

It's a sensitive area isn't it? In my book there are 3 options for breeding

pure breeding - work with the best birds you can with the aim of improving the breedcross breeding - start with an anticipated outcome and work with a planheinz breeding - OK if that's what you want to do and you like surprises but don't destroy the best birds in the process.

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